Paschal Donohoe (Dublin Central, Fine Gael) | Oireachtas source

I thank the Deputy. As Minister for Public Expenditure, National Development Plan Delivery and Reform, I am responsible for setting the overall capital allocations across Departments and for monitoring monthly expenditure at departmental level.

The responsibility for the management and delivery of individual investment projects, within the allocations agreed under the national development plan, rests with the individual sponsoring Department in each case. Each Minister is responsible for deciding on the priority programmes and projects that will be delivered under their remit within the NDP and for setting out the timelines for delivery. The NDP published in October 2021 provides a detailed and positive vision for Ireland out to 2030 and delivers total public investment of €165 billion over the period 2021 to 2030.

In recent years, the delivery of the plan has been adversely impacted as a result of pandemic-related pauses in the construction sector, labour supply issues, the inflationary impacts from both Covid-19 public health measures and the inflationary consequences of, among other things, the war in Ukraine. Capital projects can go under or over profile for other reasons, such as delays in planning, delays caused by the rising level of costs, supply chain disruptions and skilled labour shortages, all of which can lead to delays.

The rolling multiannual capital envelopes introduced in 2004 allow Departments to carry over up to 10% of unspent voted capital expenditure from the current year into the next, although this is not technically considered to be an underspend as the funds remain with the Department. The total level of carryover sought from 2023 into 2024 was €520 million, which was 4.1% of the 2023 total gross voted capital allocation.

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